By way of background to further understand the invention described hereinafter, the following definitions are provided.
Node: A point or area in a vibrating material or musical instrument where less vibration or very little vibration occurs.
Overtones: Overtones can be heard as simpler tones or vibrations of a single frequency which, when combined, make up the whole of a musical sound. In cymbals, gongs, and hybrid percussion instruments, there is a complex matrix of overtones comprising the whole.
Swell: A term in music and in describing cymbal and percussion sound, whereby after the instrument is struck, sound grows over time from low to high amplitude. In cymbals (especially those known as crash cymbals), a rise in the frequency and complexity or number of overtones accompanies the rise in amplitude. Instruments with a relatively slow rise to full amplitude are deemed to have a greater degree of swell versus those instruments with a fast rise in amplitude.
Hybrid Instrument: As defined here, an instrument which, due to specific forming techniques, shapes, and materials, is suspended in ways similar to a gong while producing sounds similar to both cymbals and gongs. Such an instrument can be embodied in a variety of shapes, not limited to shapes resembling gongs. The defining factors are that such instruments are suitable to be struck by drumsticks, are suspended from flexible members such as cord, chain or cable at points other than the center node of a disc or dome shape as in cymbals and that these instruments are capable of complex mid and or high frequency overtone structure similar to cymbals as well as low pitch swell as found in gongs.
Attack: The sound heard immediate after the striking of a percussion instrument. The attack is also defined as amount of time it takes for the sound of a percussion instrument to reach full volume or amplitude after a single strike. For example, an instrument with a large amount of swell (such as a large gong or cymbal struck with a soft mallet) would have a slow attack, while an instrument such as a bell struck with a metal clapper or a triangle would have a fast attack.
Hum note: In percussion instruments, such as large bells, cymbals, and gongs, as well as hybrid instruments, there exists a low frequency sound which is, depending on the instrument, loud or soft in amplitude. In cymbals this note is much lower in frequency than the accompanying overtones, and is ideally much lower in amplitude. Some cymbal makers seek to reduce the amplitude of the hum note as it can interfere with the low frequency spectrum of music. String, wind and other non-percussive instruments, feature a low note called a fundamental tone which is the basis for a series of overtones, which are in frequency based on precise integer multiples of this fundamental, and are thus regarded as being “in tune.” The hum notes and the overtones of cymbals, gongs and hybrid instruments are not integer based, or tuned to a specific pitch and are thus “not in tune.”
Generally, percussion instruments such as gongs and thundersheets have historically been constructed in a few traditional shapes.
Traditional gong shapes are: a disc with a rounded edge which can in the case of southeast asian style gongs be curved into a reverse or negative curve; a disc with a slight domed shape with a flattened center; or various creative shapes with curved edges. Gongs often have curved edges but these are simply rounded edges of a single-sectioned instrument. They do not teach the bending along a line involved in the present invention described below.
Thundersheets have by definition been flat sheets of metal which can be struck or shaken.
Flextones do feature bent metal but for an entirely different purpose. The flextone is a small hand held instrument which is manually flexed while playing to alter a fundamental frequency. Few overtones exist in the flextone. It basically vibrates in a single mode to produce a pronounced, single note which varies in frequency according to manually applied varying tension applied by the musician. The instrument is shaken while playing and has a built-in mallet to repeatedly hit the vibrating surface. As the flextone is flexed, the single note rises in frequency.
The small flextone instrument in no way teaches the benefits of this invention which vibrates in very complex modes and produces a multitude of low and high frequencies simultaneously.
Cymbals have been constructed in many variations of the traditional shape but have never featured sections which are bent or folded along lines.
In each case, prior art vibrated in complex modes but within a single section, and without the use of a folded shape.